The Catalyst
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: What turns a great man into a good one? A catalyst. Everyone thinks John Watson will be the making of Sherlock Holmes. They're right. That doesn't mean there isn't going to be pain along the way. And, fortunately, humor too.
1. Chapter 1

_If the Sherlock we imagine existed—the sweet one who is tender to John—I think a fight like this would eventually have to happen, what with John seeing how kind Sherlock can be, yet witnessing daily how awful he often chooses to be instead. Lestrade said Sherlock was a great man, someday he might even be a good one; while Mycroft thinks John could be the making of his brother. I think John will be Sherlock's catalyst for change, change for the better, but it's going to hurt along the way. This is how I'm imagining it starts. Don't worry, it ends well. Spectacularly well if you must know._

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**Chapter 1: John Watson Has a Mad**

It was the searing black and white of it that started everything.

The white: A morning that had started slowly, in bed, and with kisses.

Sherlock was always sweetly hungry for any affection John gave him, as delighted as a child with a rare gift. So when John announced that morning that no one was allowed out of bed until he'd kissed all of Sherlock's "bumpy bits," the tall, lean man had stretched like a cat, then done a very sexy imitation of a purr.

With a smile John kept his word, kissing Sherlock's ankles, both knees, his hip bones, his elbows, collar bones and ribs, and finally his Adam's apple and nose.

"And now, if you turn over I'll take care of that spine and your shoulder blades. And quite possibly other things."

But Sherlock didn't turn over, instead he pulled John to him, wrapped him up in long arms, and held him tightly for the next twenty minutes.

The black came two hours later, undoing everything that had come before.

"—and you really shouldn't open that over-large mouth—by the way, your dentist misses you, and you may want to do something about your breath, it could peel the skin from a skull—if you're so clearly unable to _think_ before you speak madam."

John stood rooted in the doorway of the kitchen, jaw dropped, tea mugs in both hands.

In the living room, not quite a dozen feet away, sat his sister Harry and Sherlock. They had met for the first time not quite two minutes ago and had been alone for exactly 23 seconds. It was the latter who had just now eviscerated the former.

John said nothing to either of them, just turned on his heels and left.

No one saw him for the next ten hours. By then Harry had gone home, Sherlock was setting up an experiment, and John was frozen half to death, having walked a large part of central London in a coat more suitable for taxi rides.

It was long after nightfall when he returned to the flat, only to discover the living room mercifully empty. With a relieved sigh he hung his head a moment and rubbed his eyes. Tension he'd been carrying most of the day started draining from his body.

His very cold body.

He crossed the living room quickly, toward the mostly-working radiator left of the moose head. He groaned with relief at the warmth, chafing his hands and rubbing his arms. It was then he noticed Sherlock's reflection in the window glass.

Sitting at the kitchen table, a small desk lamp blaring across the tabletop and his busy hands, his lover said, "You should take those clothes off. Your feet will be ice later." The detective smiled to himself. "You could take them off there if you like. I wouldn't mind."

For a long time John just stared at the other man's reflection, saying nothing as the tension flooded back into his body, making his posture rigid, and his hand shake. Finally he spoke, measured and low. "You do what you're good at."

Sherlock plucked up a pair of tweezers and said, "Thank you."

John's gaze fell to the street. It was raining now. Icy rain that shifted into sleet and back again. It was the kind of weather that probably kept even criminals indoors. "That wasn't a compliment."

Sherlock didn't hear the reply at first, intent on tweezing spider eggs into a tub of clotted cream. After a moment his brows tugged down, and with a blink he looked up. "Why are you mad at me?"

When you were spoiling for a fight it did save time, living with Sherlock Holmes. He always skipped the banal lead ups—"Excuse me, what did you say?" or "What is _that _supposed to mean?"—and went right to the meat of the matter.

John watched a couple down below run across the slick road. The woman caught the man's hand when he slipped. "You spend so much time telling the rest of us we're stupid. But it's really you who's stupid."

Sherlock pursed his lips, glanced at his spider eggs, back to John, then put down the tweezers and waited.

"You don't know about the solar system, that one's well-known." John gently kicked at the wall, unaware he was doing it. "You're also completely ignorant of everyday etiquette, we all know that's another, and you—"

Sherlock clenched his jaw and frowned at his flatmate's back. "Is there a point to this John?"

The doctor turned from the window, took a deep breath. "Okay, here it is: You do what's easy for you Sherlock. _You do what's easy._ For you magnificent deduction is almost as simple breathing. You're not even trying hard most of the time." John's hands fisted, he was warming up to this. "But then you look at everyone else, people who _are_ trying, trying very hard to be _better than they are_ and you belittle them. Where do you get off minimizing everyone else when You. Aren't. Even. Trying. When was the last time you actually did something that's hard for you_,_ something that doesn't come naturally? Ever? _Ever?"_

When the words weren't laudatory or in some other way interesting, Sherlock often tuned people out. He did this quickly, protectively, and by now instinctively. To nearly everyone. All the time.

And frankly it was usually for the best, because it was rare moments like these when the consulting detective understood how much power words actually have. You can't touch them, you can't taste them, but they can leave you with a sharp ache in your belly and bitterness in your mouth just the same.

Sherlock blinked rapidly. "I don't understand," he said.

John barked out a laugh. "Ha! Well then clearly you're an idiot. Certainly stupider than anyone _else_ in the room, that's for sure."

Sherlock opened his mouth. His heart was pounding so hard it was difficult to breathe.

"Does it feel good, Sherlock, feeling stupid? That coldness in the pit of your stomach that actually hurts, your throat tight and closed off, as if you can't swallow?"

Sherlock squeezed his eyes closed.

"You. Don't. Try. And you mock those of us who do." Complete silence for a thousand years. Maybe two. And then: "And I am so sick of it."

There was screaming in his head now, such terrible screaming. _Here it is here it is here it is oh god it's happening. John is leaving._

"Use your words."

Sherlock jumped, eyes flying open. John was right there, in his face, leaning across the kitchen table and sneering. _Sneering._ Sherlock never realized how ugly it could look.

"Go ahead Sherlock, use your words. God knows you have so many, soooooo very many. Use some now, say something."

Sherlock groaned softly, certain something was tearing inside, nothing could hurt this sharply, this suddenly, unless there was real, physical—

"Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me off. Do what you know. Do what comes _so easily_ for you. Go ahead Sherlock, just do the awful things you're so good at."

Finally there was a sound from the other man, a low, low static-y sound, the sharp, small, terrible sound of a heart breaking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Change Times Two**

Freak, weirdo, string bean, poof: Hurt a little boy long enough and eventually he'll grow accustomed to the pain. Hurt him bad enough and maybe he'll even learn to like it.

Freak, idiot, psychopath, mutant: Hurt a grown man long enough and you'll teach him with exacting precision how to turn around and hurt you.

Harry would tell you she hadn't meant anything by the comment—"Oh John's always been useless, really, I'm surprised he can boil water much less invade a country"—but of course that's a lie. Her brother stays away from her not because she's a drunk, but because she's a mean drunk. Even when she's sober.

Returning pain for pain is so automatic by now that Sherlock hardly hears the words as they come from his own mouth. Of course not, they're reflex, self-preservation. So some part of him didn't register his reply to Harry, while another part hurt for John: _Don't let him hear her; he doesn't have the armor for this. For god's sake don't let her _talk.

And a small part of him, a tiny part that's growing and doesn't want to, knew that he was over-reacting, giving her fuel for her fire, and that of all the things he is that are good, this…this _driving need_ to hurt someone because he's been hurt is not one of them.

But that was then and this is now.

Sherlock looked up into John's eyes as he loomed across the table, so close, and for the first time in ten years Sherlock didn't spit because he'd been spit on, didn't kick or bite because someone else had kicked or bitten. No, his reflex now was to simply wrap his arms around his body, to curl up around the pain.

But John wasn't done yet.

He leaned across the kitchen table, even closer. "Come on, Sherlock, don't be shy. Say something cruel, vicious, true. Hurt me. You know you want to, you know that's the only way you'll feel better. Alive. _Relevant."_

Sherlock had wished he was dead many times. When he was ten and those two boys had beaten him up. When he was fifteen and Ben had touched him, got him hard, then laughed and called him queer. When he was twenty and could barely stand the god damned fire in his brain anymore. And now. Right now. Because John thought…John thinks that he…_wants_ to hurt him.

Sherlock didn't even hear his own throaty moan—_how do I make it stop John?—_didn't realize he was doubled-over, forehead pressed to the table—_make the pain stop? make my mouth stop?—_ that he was rocking like a wounded child—_make the world stop stop stop doing what it does to me?—_all that he knew was that he'd never hurt this bad before and that he would gladly go through the agony of growing up again, twice, three times, a hundred rather than be here, now, hated by the only human being he loved more than life.

Some animal part of his brain tried to move Sherlock away from the pain and so he jerked, leaned, fell gracelessly from the chair to the kitchen floor. He immediately scrabbled to his knees, doubled-over, desperate to be small, invisible, and to _stop the pain._

A catalyst initiates or accelerates change. Anything can be a catalyst: One match. One word. One man's love.

On that less than sanitary floor Sherlock was at that moment being catalyzed, changed, accelerated. It might take him most of a lifetime, he might never fully succeed, but starting from right now, right here in an over-bright kitchen on an icy London evening, Sherlock Holmes would finally begin the journey that would take him from being simply a great man, to being a good one.

Here's the thing though: A catalyst itself is changing as it changes other things. While John Watson might already be what many consider good, he was just beginning to understand that by tying his life to this man's, he might one day, maybe, could, would…do something great. Or maybe he just had.

John went to his knees, draped his body over Sherlock's back, enfolded him, some part of his mind amazed at how small the man beneath him felt, how breakable, how thin.

_I didn't know you could hear me through all that noise in your head. I didn't know you could hear any of us. I wouldn't have shouted so loudly, I wouldn't have hurt you so bad._

John doesn't say this because words like these never come when you need them, but it was okay, other words came, just as good.

"Oh god, why do you _care_ Sherlock? Why do you care about _me?"_

Here's a small blessing: It's almost impossible to focus on your own pain when someone you love hurts even worse.

With a hiss Sherlock lifted his head, turned, gathered John in his arms and—clumsy still— rolled onto his back, dragging his good doctor with him.

And finally Sherlock used his words, oh yes he did.

"Because you make it stop raining, even when it's raining," he hitched a breath, two, then rubbed away cold tears in John's hair. "Because you make this house warm even when it's cold. Because you see me, you _seeee_ me and when you look at me _I can see you._ I can see warmth and betterness and understanding and things I wish I were, things I wish I were _for you."_ He held hard and tight. "I don't know how to…to do what you do…to be normal or right or kind…but I want to know how, so that I don't hurt you, so that you, that you don't—" He couldn't talk anymore, couldn't think past the one awful thought.

John turned his head so his lips were pressed against Sherlock's ear. At first he simply kissed the delicate ridges and the tickling hair, then he said so softly that even one of Mycroft's supposed bugs couldn't catch it: "I will never leave you, Sherlock. I will never, ever leave you."

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There will be resolution. One more chapter. Maybe two. Must earn the adult-content rating. Please share any comments!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Declarations**

_I will never leave you._

Sherlock couldn't believe that, of course, he knows who and what he is. Yet he knows John believes it and that's enough. Too much, more than he has any right to expect.

Any right. Right. _Rights. _Sherlock knows there isn't much he can give his lover—what the fucking use is his brain to _John,_ for example?—but he can give him the right to…well to everything.

He held John closer, whispered in his ear, "Tell me anything, everything, any time, every time. Don't ever apologize to me. Don't ask my permission, don't worry you'll hurt me or make me mad. I need anything you need, I want anything you want. Even if I tell you I don't."

Sherlock shifted, the doctor did too, until they lay side-by-side on that not-even-remotely-sanitary kitchen floor. "I'm no prize, I know that. I will try to be better John, honestly I will try. But know that I'll fail, because I'm not good at…because I have…well because I don't know _how—_and because I'm selfish and I want to be selfish."

Sherlock paused to take a breath, and to give his lover a chance to speak. John wisely made not one peep. Let Sherlock work out Sherlock in Sherlock's own words. Heck, it would be instructive to both of them.

"This was…what you said tonight…anyone who's ever said anything like that to me before…well it didn't matter, even if it did. I didn't _hear_ it, even if I did. But—" Sherlock's voice dropped to a whisper, "I heard you John. I will always hear you."

_I will never leave you. I will always hear you._ _I will…I will._ When had that happened? When had their words turned into grand declarations? When had the love come? Before the lust?

Oh yes.

As vital as sex is, no one dies without it. You may _want_ to, but you won't. But without love? Nothing thrives without love. Love of life. Love of work. Love of a person. You have to have love.

And when the sex comes? Well that's good, too.

And it was coming, they both knew that. But really, it's only in the movies that fights are quickly and frantically followed by fucking.

And besides, that _floor._ Seriously. Mrs. Hudson really was not their housekeeper. She helped out, oh yes she did, far more than they had a right to expect. But she did not do windows. Dishes. Tabletops. Or floors. So the number of viscous substances that had dried to a shellac-like sheen on that kitchen floor did not bear thinking about.

Didn't matter. Yet.

Sherlock stretched out his arm, pillowed John's head on it, then brushed his lover's hair out of his eyes. "I'm not going to turn into you. I can't and don't want to. But I'm going to be…I'm going to be kinder when it's warranted. I'm going to try when I should." Sherlock looked down, at some mid-point on John's chest. "But I'm not going to always try. Some times, many times, well…"

John finally took pity. "I don't expect you to be nice to Sally. Not even once."

Still staring at nothing in particular in the region of John's sternum, Sherlock said softly, "Anderson?"

John grinned. "No, not Anderson either."

Softer still, "Mr. Carlton?"

The owner of the corner grocery. Before John, when Sherlock had to get his own milk (at least sometimes), they had had a rather infamous dust up when Carlton had insisted his chicken parts were fresh and Sherlock had insisted right back—loudly—that not only was the meat four days past expiration, bought from a dodgy farm south of Luton, but each piece had been injected with enough plumping brine to dangerously spike a hypertensive's blood pressure.

John shook his head. "Mmm, no, not Mr. Carlton."

Very very softly: "Mrs. Timothy?"

The neighbor three doors up. A perfectly nice-seeming woman of eighty-five, who had a perfectly fertile imagination apparently, and spent a lot of time using it to have erotic dreams about her neighbor, Sherlock Holmes. And then taking every opportunity to tell the object of her desires about the contents of those dreams. In disturbing detail.

John frowned. "Well…yes, you have to be nice. Or, no, no, you just have to be _quiet._ No insults."

Sherlock frowned a little. "Maybe we should go over there and have sex on her floor. Might give her a nice heart attack." Sherlock bit his lips. "Oops. Not good?"

John rolled onto his back, laughing hard. That was all the answer Sherlock needed on that one.

Then, in slow and soothing degrees, Sherlock decided he needed other things.

_Okay, sex ensues next chapter (which is hopefully up in a day or two). Apparently this story needs four chapters. Then again, if the sex is really spectacular, maybe five. I guess that depends on if they go and try to and give Mrs. Timothy a heart attack._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Satisfied Needs**

A hand was sliding across his belly, and it made John laugh harder, which made him kind of double-over, which made his shirt sort of _peel_ off the disgusting floor, which made him remember they were _on_ the kitchen floor which made him stop laughing which made Sherlock stop smiling which made everything quiet down again for awhile.

Yet still they didn't get up, just lay there close enough to share body heat, sort of mentally coming down from the intensity of before, John kind of humming, neither worrying about the invisible yet still very real remains beneath them of blood, arsenic, eyeball juice, vomit (yes, Sherlock had done an experiment with vomit), sea water, urine (don't ask), and a nice yellow curry.

_Lay your hands…_

John shuddered a sigh and actually closed his eyes for a moment, murmuring, when once more that pale, spidery hand came tip-toeing 'cross his belly. The good doctor smiled, and waited to see what it would do.

It did slow things, this spider, creeping by careful degrees beneath his jumper, then with a leisurely unbuttoning, inside his shirt. There the spider paused, flattened itself, absorbing the heat radiating from John's skin, before it stroked the narrow trail of hair that lead from his belly and into the waistband of his trousers.

_Lay your hands…_

He heard it now, too, through the kitchen wall, the neighbor's radio. He almost hummed it as well, but he didn't, because he didn't know the words, not really, though he sort of knew the chorus, everyone knew the chorus, even Sherlock Holmes.

_Oh lay your hands on me…_

Sherlock sighed softly, his mouth pressed against John's ear, "Okay," he whispered. Rising onto one elbow he stroked the other man's cheek, jaw, neck, then slowly and carefully kissed each place his hand had been.

John smiled, eyes closed, murmured, "Bedroom…bed…"

Sherlock was perched on his knees now, leaning over John with a hand either side of his shoulders. There were more kisses, nibbles, then two fingers in just the right spot to make John laugh and try to roll away.

Sherlock straddled his hips in a flash.

"Oo, you're a cheeky one," said the doctor, lacing their fingers. "Now get off me and get into my bed, you beautiful creature."

Sherlock didn't move.

"I am not getting naked and having sex with you on this terrible floor."

Sherlock smiled. "Okay, don't get naked," he said, and began undoing the buttons to his own shirt. In moments he had it open, tugged it off, folded it carefully.

"Lift," he said and was, after a moment, obeyed. He tucked the shirt under John's head, stole a kiss quickly, then rose.

Standing over his lover, bare-chested and grinning down at him, Sherlock's hands went to his belt, which he tugged open with deliberate slowness. The tease continued as Sherlock unbuttoned, unzipped, and one by one slipped off trousers, pants, shoes, and socks.

He was now naked from the waist in both directions, the entire glorious acre of him. Standing either side of John's thighs, Sherlock looked down at his lover a long while, watching the other man's breathing get faster, deeper, watching as he slid his hands up and onto Sherlock's calves. Sherlock pursed his lips and looked down at his own erection.

"Oooooh." Why was it sexier, six _times_ sexier when Sherlock looked at himself? John absolutely could not tell you. He _could_ tell you that when Sherlock pressed a hand to his own belly, then slid the other around his own cock, that he, John quite possibly squealed. A little. Well, maybe a lot.

Sherlock grinned, a vulpine, open-mouthed grin and started to slowly, meditatively, exquisitely, beat himself off.

Right hand sliding hypnotically from the tip down to the base of his cock and back again, Sherlock's other hand kneaded his sac. His hands moved so slowly over himself it was as if he were alone, unhurried by another man's hungry eyes. The only thing betraying the hummingbird thrumming of Sherlock's heart was the short, sharp breaths he took through his mouth.

That mouth, Jesus that mouth was open, his tongue moving, squirming, wriggling until John groaned, torn between where to look—those cupid's bow lips or those hands on that glistening cock.

A bead of pre-come made an unexpected appearance then journeyed down to John's belly and that was it. The good doctor growled and tugged at Sherlock's legs, "Come _here_ and let _me,"_ he said his voice breaking, his mouth open and waiting.

Sherlock blinked his gaze away from the dripping tip of his cock and looked into John's eyes. He said nothing, just held the other man's gaze, used longer strokes on himself, slower, and then started moaning.

Sometimes, some nights, that's all Sherlock did, just curled up to John's side and breathed, sighed, groaned into his ear while John masturbated. With that sexy baritone he would moan softly and desperately right against John's ear, or extravagantly, loudly, and theatrically, and either way John would get turned on, get hard, and get off, without fail.

Tonight Sherlock decided to try and kill him dead: He went for extravagant and uninhibited volume.

"Ohhhh Joooohn," he wailed, his hand finally beating a little faster. "Joooohn," he groaned, arching his neck, spreading his legs. "John, oh John."

John could no more have used his legs to stand right then than he could have recited the periodic table in French. Backward. He was transfixed, mouth open and hungry so hungry, eyes wide and riveted and his ears, well they just could not get enough.

"Louder," he whispered, barely audible, "please." Sherlock couldn't hear him or, head thrown back, see him, but the good detective _felt_ him, felt John's fingers pressing harder at his calves, felt John's hips rising, thrusting at nothing, and so Sherlock amped up the drama thank-you-very-much, groaning John's name as if he were begging, growling his need as he thrust into his own fist.

_Come, oh good god please come,_ John wants to beg_._ He does this, Sherlock does this too much, too often, tries to kill him from suspense, from need, from desire. No one, absolutely no one can drag out sex as long as Sherlock can and John is still not sure if that makes him the luckiest man on earth or if it's going to be the death of him.

"Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock," John chanted, and his lover heard that, could hear his name out of the only mouth it really belongs in, and he looked down, into John's eyes and moaning John's name he went to his knees…and continued…continued, oh good lord continued pumping, stroking, fucking his own fist, never looking away from his lover, whispering his name again and again.

"John, John, my John, mine mine mine—"

"Please now—"

"John John John—"

"Now god now—"

"John, oh John, _Jooooohn—"_

And finally, finally Sherlock started to come, his whole body shaking with orgasm, his cock spurting over his own hands, over John, and of course, over the floor.

It took a good five minutes before Sherlock's bones managed to reform, solidifying enough so he could raise himself from his elbows-and-knees huddle over the doctor's still-fully-clothed body. He lifted his head with a shuddering sigh and softly kissed his lover's open mouth, then breathed in deep when John breathed out, once, twice, three times until he was almost drunk with it.

Finally he sat up, astride John's hips and knew from the silence that John was waiting to see what he would do. For a moment, nothing, while he waited for his body and brain to calm. Then, with a small smile Sherlock reached behind him, twisted, almost stood, and grabbed a small brown bottle off of the kitchen tabletop.

He grinned wide at his good and quiet doctor, then slid down a little, until the zipper and button of John's jeans were in front of him. A moment's work opened both, and another moment had his underpants tugged down and John's very erect, very delicious-looking cock on display.

Sherlock twisted off the brown bottle's cap and—

"Stop! Stop the music!"

Sherlock's eyebrows rose, his hand froze.

"Is that hydrofluoric acid? Is it strychnine? Is it mercury? You had me get all three just yesterday Sherlock and if, so help me, you forgot which—"

Sherlock put the brown bottle to his lips and tossed back a healthy swallow.

"No!"

With a Spokian brow the detective looked back down to the doctor, who could see a fat, thick bead of…ooooh yeah, he remembered picking that up too…mineral oil dribbling down Sherlock's extremely suckable lower lip.

After a hard I-told-you-so-stare, Sherlock continued about the business of lubing up his lover's only marginally smaller erection.

When he was done he slid up John's body like a very large cat and let his lover suck on his lip awhile, murmuring encouraging noises at the back of his throat. When he could feel that John was ready again—heart beating fast, breath actually hotter, erection and muscles harder—Sherlock swung off the doctor's body, turned on hands and knees and presented, for John's viewing pleasure, his immensely fuckable rear.

Sherlock did not have long to wait before he felt John's body heat, then his hands running up the back of his thighs, then—hello—John's hot tongue poking at him for several delirious seconds, then John's hotter, slicker cock pressing at him, pressing carefully gently unrelentingly until he slid inside and up to the hilt.

Sherlock's arms wobbled, he let his elbows disengage, and he pressed his forehead to the floor. And for John Watson, what had already been smoking hot turned into a five-alarm fire.

John slid his hands along the slope of Sherlock's back, pressed himself along as much of him as he could, and started slowly humping his lover and listening, listening to him moan.

They were soft this time, those moans, hungry, needy, desperate. John closed his eyes and let the sounds make him so hard it hurt, let them bring him close to the edge, and twice, when he was almost there he stopped, waited, and began pumping again only when he heard his lover's whimper, when he felt the muscles in his sides and his legs tense because two can play at that game, and John could learn to tease just as well as Sherlock.

Except no, he couldn't, because John was not a genius, and Sherlock was—at everything, apparently—because with John's very next thrust more than the muscles of Sherlock's sides and legs tensed, one other area of his body went very, _very_ tight—and before he knew what hit him John was coming so hard his knees would have given out so thank god his arms were wrapped around his lover's waist as the orgasm blasted through him, a fire that did not burn.

Was it twenty minutes they lay curled together on that patch of floor, one man completely naked, the other fully dressed? Maybe it was ten minutes. Five. Didn't matter. Time was taffy-pulled and John was delirious, sleepy, and in a happy haze.

Sherlock, however, was doing what he does best. He was thinking. And making a plan. And it was good. Of course it was.

"John," he whispered, "will you go with me to St. Bart's tonight? I have an idea."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: A Satisfactory Plan**

"This is so so so so so very wrong Sherlock. I don't even want to think about what I'm seeing here. I think my eyes are burning. I think I might go blind."

Sherlock said nothing, just continued to arrange his props.

"You know it has to be bad if a man who has gone to war and worked in an emergency room wants to throw up."

Sherlock bit his bottom lip and muttered briefly to a prop. It didn't have ears, but that didn't seem to matter to the laser-focused consulting detective.

"Why does this not bother you? How can you actually think this is, this is…a normal response to a pretty minor problem?

Sherlock glanced at his lover. "Minor? _Minor?_ You haven't heard what I've heard. If you had you would do exactly what I'm doing. You'd do worse."

John frowned. Sherlock was a drama queen, no doubt about that, but however extravagant he could be, he didn't tend toward hyperbole. "What exactly have you heard. Exactly?"

Sherlock lay back on the kitchen floor—which they (yes they, as in both) had finally got on their hands and knees to scrub (not that it would do much good after tonight)—wriggled a little, then put one hand behind his head. "How's this?"

John tried casting a dispassionate eye at the scene, but he couldn't. It was just too ghastly. And wrong. Sick really. John's only consolation was having talked his lover out of using quite so much blood.

"Um, it's profoundly disturbing, Sherlock, that's what it is."

Sherlock barked out a laugh. "That's what I was aiming for. Are you ready?"

John sighed. He did not want to do this, he really didn't want to do this.

Sherlock sighed, exasperated. "She has talked about her knitting needles being _inside_ certain parts of my anatomy. Sometimes, apparently, there's also…also…" Sherlock shuddered, "Marmite involved."

John's jaw dropped. "Good god. Jesus." Sherlock looked at him with a 'I-told-you-did-I-not-tell-you? stare.'

"Okay, well then let's do this. Stay very still and I'll get a few good shots."

Two hours later they were done, props returned to St. Bart's, blood cleaned up, and digital photos downloaded to John's laptop.

"That one," Kneeling behind John's chair, Sherlock leaned his chin on the doctor's shoulder and pointed to a photo. "And that one, too."

John cast his gaze critically over the images Sherlock had selected, then shook his head. "No, definitely not the second one, that—so help me it hurts to even think this much less say it—is actually really rather sexy. I think this one here, just this one, nothing else. You look kind of corpse-like yourself."

Sherlock chewed on his lip, frowned, then nodded. "Yes, all right, let's print it and send it."

And that is how, three days later, one Mrs. Carla Olivia Timothy, their eighty-five year old neighbor three doors down, came into possession of a candid photograph of her pallid neighbor, laying on his kitchen floor, spattered (semi-decorously) with blood, an honest-to-god severed human arm fig-leafing his privates, and another raggedly severed arm—its hand fisted around a glistening knife—casually draped across his chest, his hand resting on its hand as if on that of a lover's.

Sherlock and John never saw Mrs. Timothy on the street at the same time as themselves again. And not too long after that resounding success John had to jump on Sherlock and forcibly tear the envelope addressed to the corner grocer, Mr. Carlton, out of his lover's hands.

_End_

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_I'd love reviews please! Especially since this started so angsty, angry, hurt and ended up…well you see where we are and frankly it's rather insane. So…thoughts? Thank you!_


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